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3.03.2011

This morning I came upon two new sites for your pleasure. Twitter actually led me to them and I will forever be greatful. The first site I came upon is called Stair Porn. This site is full of awe inspiring photos of stairs. Yes I know what you are thinking... David has lost his mind once again. But you need to check this site out. It is as if you took a world tour of the coolest staircases from around the world. You need to go take a look and follow them on http://www.twitter.com/.

The second site I came upon was Morph Interior Blog. Their twitter account is @interiorporn (listen twitter reccomended them and I had to check them out). This site is run by Luke Williams who is the Co-Director of Morph interior ltd. He has collected a wealth of amazing photos combined with his interior design experience make for a great blog that I will follow now on a regular basis. Good stuff!

This is a very good question. I think IKEA is a truly interesting subject for this question because its whole business is based around its catalog since it began.

Over the past few years we have seen a lot of traditional print news resources disappear because they were so big and they were not able to adapt to changes in technology and how consumers are now consuming information. We have also seen over the past few years a lot of brick and mortar stores disappear due to a poor economy and changes in globalization and how customers shop. I think this could cause a lot of trouble for companies that are unwilling to change how they do business because that is how they have always done business.

So looking back at the beginning of this semester Stacey Creely explained IMC as follows:

"What is IMC? As defined by Tom Duncan, one of the founding fathers of IMC, IMC is "a process for planning, executing, and monitoring the brand messages that create customer relationships." It’s important to remember that segmentation and diversity are at the core of IMC. "

Based on what I have learned this semester I would say that IKEA has successfully implemented IMC. They are using a lot of traditional resources including great PR and print to reach their customers. Their catalog is amazing and has been the cornerstone of how they got their message out. Most companies of their size would keep running in that direction but not IKEA. Did you know they have a IPHONE/ IPAD app catalog? IKEA APP They also have a YouTube channel, a twitter account, a Facebook site, and they have their fingers in a few other new social apps. I think are testing out new mediums to connect with their customers carefully and continuing to utilize what is and always has been working for them.

The one aspect I have to say it truly amazing about IKEA is their PR. They have been very good about getting articles in traditional media about their company and about what they are doing. If you do a google news search on IKEA you will see relevant good news about the company and all that they are doing. For example when I did it just now it pulled up “IKEA building its own personal wind farm". They get the message out in a big way and tying it all into their products and their wants and needs of their target customers.

If you understand who their target customers are, and you look at how they are reaching them, I am very surprised to see a different strategy then I would take work so well. IKEA has really done things different then its competitors and I believe that is why they are so successful. I only hope that they continue to adapt their strategy to the ever changing mediums that technology is providing us.